Nepotism. This isn't a mark against anyone personally as I'm sure they are nice people in lucky situations. However, unless you are married to someone in the ivory bro tower, BFF with someone in the ivory bro tower, your chances of a strong trajectory for your career based on merit is been slim.
Pay, stock, and bonus: Only directors and above can afford homes, save for retirement, max their 401k, pay for childcare, etc.
Women at Blizzard: They are (finally) trying, but only after things got pretty grave. For a few years, the only female big promotions were strongly correlated to nepotism. In addition, unethical romances in the tech department (that EVERYONE knows about) went unchallenged, HR looking the other way, and even promoting those who made severely poor romantic workplace choices.
Tech stack: The tech stack in many parts of the company is outdated which is one of the reasons things (new features) take a long, long time.
Hostility in Battle.net: A few years ago, Blizzard hired many Microsoft PMs/Directors that brought their hostile, alpha-male, non merit based, interrupting habits, top-down decision posse to Orange County. While many tech companies have ditched this type of workplace culture and actively avoid these types of hires, B.net doubled down on it. If you search for the "Microsoft org chart by Bonkers world", it reflects the culture they brought to Battle.net. I now know from being on the outside, Battle.net senior PMs/directors at Blizzard have made a name for themselves in the industry, and not in a good way.
